Dominican Republic to Build Wall on Haiti Border
March 6, 2021
The president of the Dominican Republic Luis Abinader has announced plans to build a fence along its border with Haiti which extends for about 380kms or 236 miles.
According to Abinader, the barrier will help curb illegal immigration, drugs and the flow of stolen vehicles between the two countries, which share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. He also said work on the barrier would start later this year.
“In a period of two years, we want to put an end to the serious problems of illegal immigration, drug trafficking and the movement of stolen vehicles,” Abinader said in an address to Congress.
The cost of the project has not been disclosed.
Abinader said the barrier in some “conflictive” sections would include a double fence along with motion sensors, infrared systems and facial recognition cameras.
Haiti is one of the poorest nations in the western hemisphere and relations between the two neighbors have been historically difficult.
The Dominican Republic, which has a population of about 11 million, has already constructed some stretches of fencing along the border.
It is estimated that about 500,000 Haitian migrants are living in the country—many of them there illegally.
In January, the government agreed to help Haiti provide identity papers to its citizens living in the neighboring territory.
CMC
Dominican Republic plans wall to keep out Haitian migrants
Santo Domingo (AFP)
Experts have hit out at a plan by the Dominican Republic government to build a wall on its border with Haiti to reduce illegal immigration, claiming it won't work unless accompanied by development.
The Dominican Republic and Haiti share the island of Hispaniola, which was the site of the first European colony in the Americas. They are separated by a 380-kilometer (240-mile) border.
Dominican President Luis Abinador announced on Saturday that work on a border wall would begin in the second half of the year.
"Within two years we want to end the serious problems of illegal immigration, drug-trafficking and the transport of stolen vehicles that we've suffered from for two years," said Abinader.
The relationship between the neighboring countries has historically been difficult and every time there is a new government in Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic, it makes tackling illegal migration from French-speaking Haiti a priority.
Almost half a million Haitians live in the Dominican Republic, which has a population of 10.5 million.
On January 14, Abinader and his Haitian counterpart Jovenel Moise signed an agreement that included a commitment to take measures against "the wave of illegal migration" and "to reinforce border security and vigilance."
But for Juan Del Rosario, a professor at the Autonomous University in Santo Domingo, the Dominican capital, "there should not be a wall ... while there remains extreme poverty and political instability in Haiti, which exerts migratory pressure."
"You could build a 100-meter high wall and people will try to get around it," Del Rosario told AFP.
For William Charpentier, the coordinator of an independent migrant and refugee body, the wall would be an "unnecessary expenditure" that could be better spent elsewhere.
"They need to increase development projects" that benefit both Dominicans and Haitians in border areas, he said.
But many in the country support the idea of a wall.
"I think it's good because here in the Dominican Republic there are already many Haitians, it's full. You can't even get a doctor's appointment because it's full of Haitians everywhere," Lucia, a 23-year-old student, told AFP.
"I think it would be good because then you can control migration from one country to another, there won't be as many problems as there could be," said unemployed Antonio Mejia, 62.
"All this will benefit both countries."
Charpentier says that the idea of building walls between peoples awakens "resentment, xenophobia and racism."
- 'Permanent persecution' -
Del Rosario points to the barrier former US president Donald Trump vowed to build on the southern border with Mexico as an example for why walls don't work.00000
"With greater resources and technology, it was impossible" to build it, he said.
The Trump administration claimed to have built more than 650 kilometers of wall but according to the BBC, only 130-kilometers of that was a new wall, the rest replaced existing structures.
The border itself is more than 3,000-kilometers long.
Charpentier says migrants face "permanent persecution" due to the mass deportations of those that are undocumented, while even legal migrants face difficulties in renewing documents and renting homes.
Yet border areas are dynamic with people crossing regularly for work or to sell goods.
"Contrary to what you might think, the money is on the Haitian side and the goods are on the Dominican side," said Del Rosario.
"There's an informal exchange which cannot be considered contraband ... if that's blocked, there will be internal migration flows" from border regions to the big cities.
Agriculture and construction both rely on foreign laborers, adds Josue Gastelbondo, the head of the International Organization For Migration office in Santo Domingo.
"Ideally, measures to increase border controls should complement measures to promote regular and orderly migration," he said.
© 2021 AFP
Célimène Daudet - Biography:
"The French #pianist, Célimène Daudet, was born in the south of France to a Haitian mother and a French father. She began her music studies in piano with Michel Bourdoncle at the Conservatory of Aix-en-Provence. There, she awarded two gold medals and, at a young age, gave her first recitals and performed with an orchestra. Then, she studied under Olivier Gardon and Denis Pascal. In 1999, after winning two awards in piano at the CNR (Conservatoire National de Région) in Paris and Rueil-Malmaison, she was laureate in the Jean Françaix International piano Competition in #Paris. That same year, she was admitted to the National Superior Conservatory of Music and Dance of Lyon (CNSMD) under the direction of Géry Moutier. She received her DNESM (diplôme national d études supérieures musicales) in 2003 and the certificate for teaching in 2005. Her passion for chamber music drove her to enroll at the National Superior Conservatory of Music and Dance (CNSMD) in Paris to study with violonist Jean Mouillère, in order to increase the repertoire of piano and violin pieces.
A mayday call led to Coast Guard rescue, and repatriation, of 25 Haitians off Palm Beach
BY HOWARD COHEN
The mayday call may have saved the lives of 25 people aboard an overloaded 30-foot boat about 30 miles northeast of Jupiter.
“Mayday, mayday ... we are about 15 miles from, from Palm Beach ... on board a boat ... we need assistance ... including women and children.”
Caribbean bloc calls for more equity in COVID vaccine distribution
By Jacqueine Charles
The 15-member Caribbean Community Friday called for fair, transparent and equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, noting that some wealthy countries have an abundance of supply while many poorer nations have not received a single dose.
“So far, all that we have received are 170,000 doses gifted to a couple nations from the government of India,” said Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Keith Rowley, chairman of the regional bloc known as CARICOM. “Barbados and Dominica, who received these gifts, graciously shared them around to many of us. This was done by them even as others with millions of doses that they can’t use immediately are refusing to make way for others at the manufacturers’ shipping line.”
Rowley made the call on behalf of the bloc during a virtual appearance sponsored by the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center. His plea comes as most Caribbean and Latin American nations continue to wait on deliveries of COVID-19 vaccines from a slow-moving United Nations-backed facility known as COVAX, and as worldwide vaccine shortages and quickly spreading variants of the coronavirus increase the urgency for relief.
The Biden administration is deporting hundreds of Haitians to a country mired in political chaos
Marcela García, Globe columnist
February 22, 2021
We may have a new president, but the machinery of government sometimes churns with heartbreaking inertia — as if Joe Biden weren’t in the White House.
Case in point: the deportation of hundreds of Haitians this month, a move straight out of former president Donald Trump’s playbook. For these Haitians, fleeing a country suffering in deep poverty, Trump might as well be in charge. As would-be asylum seekers, the Haitian migrants, most of whom came to the United States recently through Mexico, have been denied the opportunity for due process in an asylum system that’s broken and thatthe Biden administration is working to fix.
According to immigration advocates who track flights leaving the United States with deportees, since the beginning of February — Black History Month, no less — roughly 900 Haitians have been expelled. It’s a Trump-inspired chaos and cruelty that has its own momentum. President Biden inherited a mess at our borders, and one of his first humane acts was to hit the pause button, including issuing a 100-day moratorium on most deportations. Most, but apparently not all.
The conditions in Haiti are no better than the worst in Honduras and Guatemala. There’s been a wave of brutal kidnappings for ransom by violent gangs as unemployment takes hold of the country, where 60 percent of Haitians live in poverty. Haiti has been experiencing chronic suffering, a condition that natural disasters — the 2010 earthquake andHurricane Matthew, in 2016 — have only exacerbated. And there’s the small irony of its would-be dictator president, Jovenel Moïse, who was supposed to leave power in early February, when his five-year term ended,but instead refused to leave. He has systematically engaged in antidemocratic efforts, such as dismissing most of Congress — and every mayor in the country — and instead has ruled by presidential decree.
Several thousand people demonstrated on Feb.14 to denounce a new dictatorship in Haiti and the international community's support for President Jovenel Moïse. The protesters were accusing Moïse of illegally extending his term.
Without question, Haiti’s long-term, deep-rooted problems call for long-term solutions. But the Biden administration is only adding to the country’s woes by sending hundreds of Haitians back. “This is no time to deport or expel anyone to Haiti, given the crisis there,” said Steve Forester, immigration policy coordinator for the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and a longtime advocate for the Haitian diaspora.
And yet families, including pregnant women, were sent home, said Dieufort Fleurissaint, a pastor and the chair of Haitian Americans United, a Boston-based advocacy organization. “These Haitians were not given an opportunity to present their case as part of their due process to apply for asylum. That’s wrong,” he said. These deportations have happened largely throughwhat is called Title 42, after the public health law invoked by Trump last year in response to the coronavirus pandemic that allows the expulsion of recently arrived migrants.
“These Haitian expulsions seem to be intentional policy from the Biden administration,” said Forester. “It’s deterrence on steroids: ‘If you cross the border, you will be put on an airplane to Haiti,’ while the Biden team crafts new protocols for dealing with the border.” But deterrence makes no sense when people are desperate.
It gets worse: Other immigrants have been caught in the mess. Even a Black immigrant who’s not Haitian was allegedly deported there recently. Representative Ayanna Pressley cosigned a letter — along with other US representatives — to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas demanding answers on what they call “a recent string of mass deportation flights of Black people to Haiti.” The Congressional Hispanic Caucusis also calling for Mayorkas to review the deportations.
“That ICE would carry out the cruel and callous mass deportations of our Haitian neighbors and specifically target Black immigrants — during Black History Month and in the midst of a national reckoning on racial injustice — is further evidence that it is a rogue agency that is beyond reform and will stop at nothing to continue terrorizing our communities,” said Pressley via e-mail.
Pressley is right. Biden should make it a priority to find an intermediate solution while his administration works to fix our asylum system — and make it one that doesn’t include the expedited removals of Black immigrants without any asylum processing at all.
Marcela García can be reached at